


Corpse Party

by Phritzie



Series: Drinking Buddies [3]
Category: Runescape
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Convenient Plot Twists, Extremely Darksided Flirting, Former Relationships, Implied Torture, Multi, Romantic Horrorshow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 15:24:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13592928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phritzie/pseuds/Phritzie
Summary: An opportunity to do good comes along, and like always she takes the bait.





	Corpse Party

**Author's Note:**

> Now we're veering off canon. I'm retconning a lot and altering dialogue to make room for a reinterpretation of what went down during Kindred Spirits. (Come on. You can't just noclip through your cell to deck Sliske.) And a few more invisible NPCs get the limelight.

When Felix saw her bow hanging from the back of an armchair the next day she understood. That didn't mean she was thrilled about it.

_Convenient._

She wouldn’t put it past him to plan things a certain way. Every one of his awkward intrusions on her life had some loose reasoning connected to them. But as rattled as she had been that morning, leaving behind her bow was an honest mistake.

As she picked it up, Felix felt its voiceless call surge up her arm. It was god-imbued, powerful on the kick, and everything she had ever needed in a weapon. Purple gems around the grip glinted, a flash of color in an otherwise muted, slim figure. She carried the bow to where it belonged in her armory and stowed it alongside its sisters. “Rest up for the next one,” she commanded.

_Honestly, I need a break too._

She examined the racks and studded brackets adorning the walls. A bounty of sharp implements, ammunition, and protective coverings filled the displays she had crafted to house them, some more loved than others. Felix pulled a set of flexible leather from its stand. Her fingers gave one of the sleeves a strong squeeze, admiring the give. Gathering her hair into a low braid, she dressed, and drew the hood of her slate gray cloak over her head.

 

* * *

 

Walking never had the same effect on her as running did. Just like leaping from a high perch was only as satisfying as the sight of the ground rushing up to meet her, adrenaline only gave an assist when it had a place to go. Her troubles relished the chase.

 _I'm good at running away,_ Felix remembered, the phrase less funny to her now.

Taking the impact against her shoulder, she rolled to her feet and groaned as her knees unbent, armor creaking with each firm push against frost and dirt. She grabbed the slats of the wall before her and pulled, legs swinging to clear the weathered brick chimney of the ceramic master's kiln. She flew across the next rooftop, shingles rattling from the force of every step. Attempted to facilitate the softening of each impact as they jolted up her spine.

It had been a long time since the villagers of Draynor were roused by the sights and sounds of the World Guardian training.

Felix jumped across a gap. Tucked her arms into a neat position as her orientation to the world spun in a flash of brown and white ovals. The flip carried her to a gable flecked with lichen, and though the descent was seamless it startled a flock of birds, wings flapping in their synchronous agitation.

As more of her situation with Sliske came into focus so did her anticipation of its end.

Relying on memory to move through the course marks for each obstacle, Felix came to a stop only when the screaming in her lungs began to outmatch the upheaval tearing through her mind.

She collapsed against a short bench and tried not to think about mahjarrat conspiracies. The list of reasons to seek help with the whole shitshow was growing longer by the day, a mental catalog tantamount to grudge-bearing but reasonable enough that anyone she turned to would be willing to listen.  _Even if it destroys my reputation._

Failing that, no matter the outcome, the only weapon she could never afford to lose was her determination to do good.

Two sandals stepped into sight.

“Haven't seen you clear that many laps so fast before,” a voice offered coyly.

Felix laughed through her labored breathing. “Unsurprising,” she gasped, “considering you can't even hit the broad side of a cow. I don’t fault you your perceptual shortcomings.”

“Yes, better not to hate the wielder,” Leela chided. “And I've got a much better crossbow now, if you'd like to take me.” She joined Felix on the bench, and ran her fingers across the wood between them playfully. "One on one?"

Blushing, she probed the place where she knew a rough scar lay, a few centimeters and a prayer away from where her heart was beating. “No, you'd probably kill me,” Felix said dryly, and coughed when Leela smacked her shoulder.

“I said I'm sorry how many times?” Her low voice had an edge to it that always warned of reprimand, contrasting sharply against her feminine way of dressing.

When her heart had finally calmed enough to speak without shivering, Felix eyed Leela suspiciously. “I didn't know you were in town. If I had, I would've said hello.”

Answers were not that easy to secure from her. “Well, it’s never too late. Lunch is just around the corner,” Leela replied brightly, standing and putting out her hand to take. Felix made a face as she rose, her muscles protesting in their fatigue. “Come on. Fresh bread is waiting.”

The food stall Leela brought her to was emitting a very appetizing scent. Brown rounds of flat dough lay on a floured surface. The vendor behind the stand carefully constructed a shell out of each wrapping, spooning judicious portions of vegetable, egg, and meat that steamed into the bread.

They bought sandwiches to their taste and then sat by the lagoon, legs splayed in the grass as they ate.

“What brings you back here?” Leela asked around a mouthful of food. “The adventurer-retiree, clotheslines and chimney stack architecture must be child’s play by now.”

Felix chewed thoughtfully. “I could ask you the same. This place doesn't hold great memories for either of us.”

The intelligencer examined her slyly from behind her meal, licking the delicious sauce the vendor had so kindly given them uncurbed access to from her fuchsia lips. “You first, busybody.”

“Just seeing a friend in Lumbridge,” Felix admitted. “Finished helping someone discover, uh. The history of humankind," she ticked one finger after the other, "found out I've been sleeping with my worst enemy for an indefinite period of time, and I think I'm developing a bit of a drinking problem. It's been a rough week.”

The bronzed circlet on Leela’s head flashed dully in the low sunlight as she tossed her head back in amusement. “Really? Sounds fun.” She lifted her eyebrows and took another hearty bite. Felix could hear the crunch of carrot as her jaw worked.

“Okay, maybe a little worse than 'rough'," Felix sulked. "I'm in a lot of trouble right now.”

Leela swallowed her bite of sandwich. “It shows." The coolness of her rings surprised her as she patted her arm with a slightly sticky hand. "You seem to be handling it well.”

_Am I?_

Old willows creaked around them. A soft wind from across the water lifted their thready branches, and Felix turned her face into the vernal breeze. Her sandwich was losing its warmth. It would soon be getting too cold to hang about in the dew. She wondered why Leela wasn't more affected by the season. _A woman of illogicality._

A soft laugh preceded her question. "Do I happen to know this nemesis of yours?"

“Maybe we should agree not to talk about it,” Felix evaded. “I'd like to keep you calm. We don't have a lot of calm anymore.”

“Selfish as always,” Leela said, and sighed, a sound exaggerated in its extravagance, but the care in her eyes was genuine. “You know where to find me if you do need to talk.” 

They finished their food. The intelligencer wiped her empty hands on her sash and as they embraced to say farewell, she leaned in close for a whisper. 

“One last thing. If you see Meg, please tell her to write me back. I don’t _need_ her help, per se,” Leela paused, contemplative, “but the input could be valuable and my best spies can't find her anywhere.”

"Wow," Felix breathed, oddly proud. "They grow up so fast."

 

* * *

 

Relomia swallowed nervously as her master paced the floor of their hideout. He had been very busy these past weeks, delegating tasks to her snappishly and obsessing over minutiae she couldn't seem to perceive as important. But now the intensity with which he was running through the show was almost too frantic, too rushed. It would really put a strain on the crew.

The maze was very time consuming to build in her opinion. They might've been better served to forego collecting the electric eels, because that would at least buy the wights more time to finish casting the god statues. But there was no use denying the effectiveness of his melodramatic fixation with symbolism. It got people talking, that was for sure.

Although who all this was meant to be for escaped her.

Calling Relomia into his study, he had raved at length about how she needed to bring the very best for her upcoming role. He was bent over a small instrument now, tuning it perhaps, and the melodic tones of an arcane focus filled the room.

“Alright,” Sliske said tightly, turning to her with an expectant crook of his hand. “From the beginning, whatever you can remember. Go.”

The fire sorceress took a deep breath, and her features bled into a look of desperate terror. The slight aura that emanated from her body grew stronger, enveloping her in a cloud of troubled shadows.

His eyes gleamed approvingly, and her heart swelled.

“The Dragonkin!” Relomia lamented, voice quavering. “They found a way to do something to him... and now he's powerless!”

 

* * *

 

Their visit started out pleasantly enough.

Felix was excited to relay her findings, and her audience listened patiently, conveyed by her words to another place. She described a boy who wanted nothing more than to make magic and have cake, and the buoyant joy of a woman with a broach she had once thought lost forever.

The conversation took a bad turn when she decided to share more recent events.

“This is making me sick,” Juna hissed softly, the skin of her smooth belly shifting against the cold stone of the cavern as she breathed. “You will not see reason.”

Felix curled the hand not holding a bottle into a fist and slammed it against the rocky cliff face beneath her. “I _know_!”

The immense sigh of the serpentine guardian above blew her hair over her shoulders, swirling the blue-tinted mist that glinted around them. The general energy of the place usually doused anger, and woke contemplation in its place. Not so much today.

“Why insist on asking questions you cannot accept the answers to?” Juna asked, peering down at her with one large, amber eye as she drank her liquor.

Felix waved her off carelessly. “I'm just working stuff out. It’s what people do sometimes when they can't make a choice.”

A sound of derision. “I have provided you with an acceptable solution already.”

Juna presided over a relatively small amount of real estate. The big reptile admitted to her a degree of restlessness, and as time passed Felix would notice during her visits a certain engrossment with keeping her surroundings cleanly. The bowls she had carved for the purpose of consuming the Tears would move occasionally, and the craggy floor never overgrew with the same mold slime and moss that swathed the rest of the swamps damp network of caverns. Felix hadn’t even seen any evidence the ancient one was partial to eating.

In other words, Juna's world was small but well-supervised. She beheld everything around her in the most precise, and absolute, of terms.

“Will you care to listen if I tell you again?”

The light creatures that dwelled here were of a different nature. They loved to test the reaches of their boundaries, listing curiously against the ceiling and rousing whenever a noise traveled down the tunnels. Flying above them now they were moving in a specific pattern, Felix was almost sure of it. She tried to imagine what it would be like to join their ethereal dance.

“World Guardian,” Juna insisted, nudging her with a broad nose, “you try my patience.”

“If I-- when I kill him,” Felix stammered, kicking a pebble over the craggy ledge for emphasis, “someone else will possess the Stone.” It bounced once or twice on its way down, producing a soft echo before falling into a chasm so deep she tried not to consider the bottom of it.

“Correct,” the serpent confirmed wearily.

“Then any of the other gods could take it again, and have an immense source of power, and it will fall to me to fix that too,” she concluded.

“You will take responsibility, at least,” Juna muttered, flicking her tongue.

“Maybe I could hide it,” Felix wondered, eyes narrowing. That hadn’t worked out very well in the past. She considered the space around her as if it were situated in a deep ocean.  _If cabbages can be gods, what's stopping a fish?_ Even in a place removed from all the sentient races she knew of, the Stone was probably safer destroyed than simply concealed.

Juna interceded on her thoughts. “I’m sure you wouldn’t be able to do so without help, and I would suggest that in such an instance, you involve as few agents as possible.”

The soft pattering of the Tears filled the pauses in their conversation, rushing quietly over the stones that wept them before seeping into the earth again. Juna's breathing lay just underneath, shuddering occasionally from the growing cold that was invading her home.

She thought about her then, and what it meant to be unable to choose the length and width of your own domain.

“Have you ever been in love?” Felix pressed, looking back on Juna with a shadowed face.

“You have asked this before,” the serpent replied, “and you know my answer.”

One last pull at the dredges sticking to the bottom, and the bottle was empty. Felix almost chucked it into the yawning hole, shoving it into her bag instead before rummaging around for a new one.

“If that is your concern,” Juna accused, “it would benefit you never to expose yourself to such a vulnerability as love. Should you have already fallen prey to it, decide whether that is justification enough to ignore the safety of a world you have been entrusted to protect.”

“But I’m not like you are,” Felix groaned, shuffling as she dug deeper into her backpack. “Gods, where the hell did I put it.” One of the light creatures drew nearer and she tilted the contents of her bag in its direction. _Aha._ She spied the flash of brown glass and pried a bottle of wine out from beneath her bedroll triumphantly, pulling the cork free with her teeth. “I got the job on merit, not commitment to company philosophy.” Hell, she was the only applicant.

“Nothing like I am,” Juna agreed, settling her wide head on her own back sullenly.

“It’s technically only half my fault,” Felix hedged. She ignored her disagreeing snort. Mouth forming a thin line, she reclined against the smoothest part of the wall and drank, shuddering at the dry taste.

“All of this is your problem,” came the smart, sibilant reply of the serpent. “If you consider that none of it isn't.”

_That's perfect, now she's being clever._

Felix wondered what time it was, and whether it would be late enough to excuse her sorry state when she climbed back out of her literal pity hole. Maybe it would turn into a proper bar crawl.

"Could try tipping it into Ful's volcano,” Felix said slowly, fingers strumming on her thigh as she thought. “Can't think of a lot of people who would mess around in there."

Juna either didn't hear her or chose not to. “There is something within you that needs culling,” the guardian decided, “just as my own prejudices needed to be dealt with in my isolation. You are alone now. Not as I am alone, but close enough.”

The wine was starting to warm her extremities, and her body felt like it was floating above the unfriendly rock beneath her, suspended in the dark, encircled by living stars.

“Alone,” Felix repeated sadly.

“Yes,” Juna agreed. “You roam, decide, kill. But you secret away your true thoughts, never caring to pledge allegiances. This... 'unbelief' is actually a kind of maxim in itself.”

“I miss Guthix all the time,” Felix said, voice giving as she thought of how true it was. She rolled the bottle in contemplation and added, “you don't have some supernatural window into my thoughts.”

She felt more than heard the sharp hiss of her dissension. “Perhaps. The sheer transparency of them makes it unnecessary. You miss Guthix because before he died you had freedom, and now you do not,” Juna corrected.

The weight of the charge hung in the air between them.

Scales winking a dark green caught her eye and when Felix looked up they were nose to snout. She fought to catch her heart before it fell into her stomach.

“I had hoped the high values you hold concerning agency would lead you to detest His murderer as much as the duty those treacherous actions unknowingly thrust upon you,” Juna whispered, head dipped pointedly, examining her. Felix became fixated on the symbol of balance that glowed solemnly on the serpent's flawless brow. “You do not think of yourself as a backstabber,” she clipped testily. “Maybe it is time you became one. If you do not, he will inevitably show you how easily he can betray you.”

Felix let go of the breath she was holding and took a careful sip of wine.

If snakes could roll their eyes, perhaps she would have deigned to, but the coils of her ancient body simply balled tighter around the stalagmites rising from the floor as she drew back into the weeping cave. “Please. Choose a side.”

Just like that their conversation was done. Neither of them spoke further as Felix finished drinking. It took a lot of effort, but she composed herself enough to rise and gather her things. The sound of the bottle joining the other in her bag was hollow for more than one reason.

Before she left she looked back on the enormous guardian. Her vision was a little wonky and not about to improve any time in the near future, but it looked like maybe Juna really was upset.

“I’ll... be back soon,” she called unsteadily, a promise. Juna raised her tail in the air and hummed, a reassuring buzz that traveled through the ground.

Felix was already halfway through the hole when she heard the serpent speak. “Bring another story with you.”

 

* * *

 

She stumbled down into the Toad and Chicken sometime after sundown, bone tired and ready to slough off her demons in friendlier company.

That didn't happen.

“Rachael!” Felix called loudly, laughing as she tripped on an uneven stretch of flooring. “I'd like to take you up on that offer!”

But instead of the redhead covered in freckles she remembered, she was greeted by a short-tempered woman hoping to go home early.

“Gods, would you please be kind to me?” The barmaid cried, fiddling with the ties on her apron hopelessly. A broom was balanced in the crook of her arm, almost longer than she was tall. Felix squinted in confusion.

“Hello...?” Felix drawled, hand sluicing through the air limply as though to shake.

“Please,” the blond pleaded again, eyes to the ceiling as she stiffly ignored her greeting. “I have to prep the kitchens tomorrow.”

_What is she asking for? That Saradomin smite me where I stand for trying to get a drink?_

“Are you... closed already?” Felix tried, turning her head with eyes narrowed to get a better idea of how the woman was doing. Her vision was fading out a little, but she seemed ill.

“I wish,” the barmaid said, and then loosed a miserable sob. With a terrible clatter, she cast her broom to the floor and collapsed into a chair surrounding one of many Draughts tables lining the hall. The image she made, hiccuping there with her head lowered, did the trick in getting Felix to pay attention to her surroundings. The Toad and Chicken was completely bare, a gilded stretch of basement devoid of any occupants. Most of the candles had been doused and every glass on the bar was right side down and sparkling.

 _Did I lose time somewhere?_ _Am I blacking out now?_

A choked wail drew her attention back to the sobbing woman in front of her and she mentally scolded herself for being so useless.

“Hey.” Felix wobbled as she approached to take a seat opposite her. “Is something the matter?” Dropping gracelessly into the chair, she patted the blank game board between them with her hands. Perhaps intuitively, the barmaid abandoned the impossible task of taking her discomfort out on her apron and accepted her invitation with strong fingers.

The barmaid sucked in a breath, fighting down her emotions long enough to say hoarsely, “my mother went missing last week.”

Felix wanted to slap herself.

“I am so sorry,” she said instead, emphatically pressing both thumbs into her shaking wrists. As she did she lowered her voice, summoning the most helpful words she could find. “What's your name? I'm Felix.”

“Sam,” was the weak reply.

“Where was she last seen?” Felix asked, struggling. “Do you believe you're in danger?”

Sam's refusal was swift and confident, blond ringlets bouncing against her forehead. “No, I don't think so. But she might be. I think it was the trolls, but her soldiers say differently--" Her speech faltered and the hands Felix had been attempting to soothe struggled to free themselves as she opened and closed her mouth in surprise. “I'm sorry! Oh Gods! I didn't mean to say that!”

 _What?_ Felix blinked. “I don't understand. Your mother serves in the Imperial Guard?” The barmaid’s expression, which had been twisted into sincere grief, was rapidly closing off.

“No one is supposed to know,” she whispered frightfully, staring as though anticipating Felix would then leap up and bite her.

She looked behind herself, then over Sam's trembling form to the empty bar, and finally at Sam. Felix raised both eyebrows. “There's no one else here. It's okay." Hopefully, her tone was believably harmless. "I'm just an adventurer, roaming the land in search of a noble quest to undertake,” she hammed politely.

“Well,” the crying barmaid stuttered, wiping her face, “if you promise. You can't tell anyone. My mother is a major in the Imperial Guard, yes.”

She tried not to let the surprise show on her face. Felix hadn't met every member of the Burthorpe militia but she certainly knew of one highly decorated woman. Steadying her voice with a short bout of throat clearing, she asked, “Why don't the soldiers think it was the mountain trolls?”

Sam released a shuddering sigh, tucking her hair roughly behind both ears and sniffing. Felix cursed herself for refusing to carry a handkerchief. _Useless._ “I don't rightly know,” she said, meeting her gaze hesitantly. “They said the sky turned pitch black, and murky like water... then when it dissipated, she was gone. Disappeared without a sound. Like she had never been there.” Her voice tightened with each word, lips pressed together, and Felix got up to pass on the hug Leela had given her.

They embraced for long enough to have them both leaning away uncomfortably afterward. “Look,” Felix murmured, grasping her shoulders firmly. “I know you're afraid for her, but the best thing you can do for your mother is be safe and wait for them to find her. I'll investigate this myself.”

Her eyes shined, and Sam's mouth twisted into a sad smile. “That's kind, but what can you do?”

Felix breathed deeply and let it rush from her nose, head bent towards her chest.  _Yes, what can I do?_

 _Make lofty promises to strangers I guess._ She looked back up at the barmaid wryly.

“I may come off as a dumb drunk, but I'm actually quite good at things like this,” she bluffed, aware of the precarious survivor-to-dead-stiff ratio on her record.

“Then... I guess that would be okay,” Sam said with less uncertainty. She stooped to grab her broom where it lay on the sticky floor, casting a weary gaze around the messy games room.

“Want help closing up here?” Felix asked.

“Oh, that would be wonderful!”

The World Guardian shook out rugs and flipped chairs onto tables, and Sam swept under them. They both wiped brass fixtures, sorted the till, and put away set pieces for Draughts and Runelink.

When they were done the clock had advanced a few hours. It would be fully night. “I wish I had some way to thank you,” Sam said quietly as they left the castle.

“You did just now,” Felix joked, grinning halfheartedly down at her. They walked to her cottage, small and nestled in the foothills of the mountain. Before the woman could shut the door, she stayed it with a hand. “Hey.”

Sam peeped out at her standing in the dark.

“Stay safe. And... I hope when this is all over, maybe you can tell me why no one can know that you're the Major's daughter,” Felix whispered through the crack, eyes darting conspicuously over her own shoulder. “I promise, your secrets are safe with me.”

“Alright,” Sam said, eyes wide. And she shut the door.

Felix stood there for a long moment. As she was stepping off her property and onto a dirt path that led back towards the castle, she realized her mistake.

_Where am I sleeping tonight?_

 

* * *

 

She got her only lead on Major Rancour that morning.

Linza found her, passed out in a ditch by the huge billows of the smithy. Lulled by the hot coals and crackling roar of the fire, Felix had dreamed she was being carried across the universe by a pink dragon.

Less of a lead and more of a headache.

Partially because it meant she was back in Draynor. Primarily because it had taken her right back into the middle of a situation she didn’t want a part of anymore.

“Good fucking riddance!” Felix laughed flatly, and through the thin slit of her eyes she saw Relomia surge forward gravely, wringing her staff.

Ice storms were common this time of year. She wondered if the chill in her boots was an approaching front.

Relomia continued to tug at her beseechingly. Released a steady bombardment of total nonsense ranging from concern over the dodgy characters she'd seen come through to the danger her master was surely facing.

Four people. Three plus one utterly disposable man. What were four people to her?

_A kid. A monk. An officer._

_A jackass._

It wasn’t too late. Felix could leave, take Linza with her. They could wait the storm out and pray for their friends in the meantime.

“I don’t understand, how could you be so cruel? You’re the World Guardian! If the Dragonkin have my master, then so too do they possess access to the Stone of Jas!”

And _damn_ Sliske _. Damn him._ “Do you know if its still in the vault?” The words were automatic, falling from her lips before she could retract them.

Felix had nothing. The only possessions she had were the clothes on her back and a flask. There was a very low chance she could do anything if she didn’t properly arm herself. Who knew if there would be enough time then.

 _Sam thinks her mother is dead_ , a reproving voice cried.

“I don’t have access to it," Relomia quaked, “when they overtook him they stripped his powers away, he was only strong enough to send me a message, I—”

_Powers? Do they have the Staff now?_

Her heartrate kicked up, speeding to the drumbeat of opportunity.

None of it was ideal. _But. It_ is _a chance,_ she realized. _A shot, maybe the only one I'll ever get to show him the folly of his confidence._

Dizzy with the hope washing over her Felix interrupted the horned woman’s runaway babbling. “Just tell me where.”

 

* * *

 

They made a quick stop for simple amenities. Water to drink. A compass. A lantern. Linza hesitantly produced a small dagger and passed it to her as they crept over the border into the scarred wasteland of Forinthy.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Felix said lowly, skirting a small group that was too far in the distance to make out. They disappeared over a foothill minutes later and the ball of stress in her stomach wound tighter.

Linza looked like she would rather be anywhere else. “I don’t think I have a choice. I can’t let you go it alone, and I care about them too.” She composed herself, wiping nervous sweat off her brow and flicking it into the lifeless dust beneath them. “Do you have a plan?”

 _No._ “I’m working on it, but if any ideas take you, please share.”

It took them hours. At one point, they waited for what felt like forever, hunkered behind a scrap of a house as the tortured soul of a slain demon intersected their route.

Ocean crosswinds whipped the flags demarcating Daemonheim’s entrance. Felix always took a moment to curse Bilrach’s loyal tenacity when she saw the decrepit ruins jutting from the frozen soil of the massive plateau. As they crested it they were spotted by a Fremennik lookout.

“Fools,” he said gruffly, “you are fools to come here.”

After they were ushered into the quarantine zone Felix and Linza passed an encampment that had seemingly been razed by a large fire. They averted their eyes from the charred mess and wiped the images of bone-shaped remains from their minds, sweeping the compound for any oddities.

_If I were a lizard, where would I hide my godless prison?_

Strangely it was Linza who spotted the trapdoor first, half buried in snow. When she opened it and shone her lantern within, the portal greeted them with a few short meters of ladder that disappeared into nothing.

They both shivered in aversion.

“Great,” Felix muttered, breath fogging in the freezing air. She unscrewed her flask and drank, ignoring the odd look it earned her.

The artisan licked her chapped lips. “Do you want to go first?”

 _No._ “Any juice on that plan we talked about?”

Linza looked stricken. “Was I actually supposed to be coming up with something?” She pressed the heel of her hand into her eyes, rubbing away the black soot that had settled there. “I’m sorry. I feel so helpless, I just wanted to make it here alive.”

Felix tried to even out her shallow breathing, and leveled a look at the smith, mustering her sincerity. “If anything goes wrong, I want you to run,” she said.

“But—”

Another sip of the flask to brace herself. “I’m serious. I have forces influencing the direction of my fate, and if something happens to me there’s a good chance it won’t be permanent. I can’t promise you the same.” She replaced it on her belt and turned, hooking a booted foot into the first rung as she looked up at Linza. “Do as I ask, please. Don’t think, just run.”

As they descended Felix tried to focus on the positives, few that there were.

 

* * *

 

_I set the bar so low for you, but you just can’t seem to measure up._

Felix watched Brother Samwell’s body fall to the dungeon floor in disgust. She registered Major Rancour’s horrified exclamations and Meg’s crying somewhere in the back of her mind, but the only thing she could see was his face, the pleasant joviality of his smile, warped like broken glass.  

 _Disappointment is my oldest friend,_ she supposed bleakly.

A kid. An officer.

 _A murderous asshole._ “—present you with the Staff, if you can rise to my challenge.”

When she moved to strike him Sliske raised the object in question threateningly, and she stopped just short of gouging her eyes on its winged points. He tilted his head back and grinned, gesturing with a flourish to an immense gate that opened in response.

“The brothers will explain everything to you,” he promised with a wink, and then he and the wights were gone, taken by the shadows.

She turned to the Major first. Meg shook, stumbling over the uneven stones littering her path to Felix and clasping her front as she sobbed into it. “You have to leave. All of you have to get out of here, now.”

“How?” Mary asked sharply, face pale. “I’ve been trapped here for days, maybe longer. There’s no way out. There’s a ward in place disabling the use of rune magic.” She reached into a pocket and withdrew some of the familiar, etched stones.  _Ugh._ Their situation was dire enough; it shouldn’t have mattered. But the visceral reaction she always had to teleporting was unforgettably bad.

The runes lit faintly from within as the Major closed her eyes and mouthed the proper incantation, but when they crumbled, spent, she remained where she was.

“Oh.” So that was out. She held Meg at arm’s length, wanting to make sure she understood. “Then all of you need to do the best you can to stay under his radar,” Felix commanded. “There has to be a way out of here.”

She let go of her and advanced toward the rusted gate purposefully, looking over her shoulder as they rushed to follow. Mary took hold of Meg and Linza trailed behind them.

“If Sliske wanted you dead, you would be dead,” she whispered finally, eyes trained on the arena before her.

_I hope. I’m betting on it._

 

* * *

 

They endured the disturbing trials boldly, and Felix did her best to remain vigilant of the women in her custody.

It was terrible watching Dharok be torn apart.

Her teeth ground in her head at the way Ahrim spoke to Isolde and Guthan.

But more chambers waited, and doubtlessly they contained more undead brothers.

“Wait here,” Felix instructed. Mary put an arm around Linza and they flattened themselves furtively against the wall as the next gate unsealed. “Meg, I need you to keep watch for any opportunity to escape while I’m in there. The first chance you get, take it.”

Still rattled from the experience of being entombed in the maze, Meg gulped and nodded. Her eyes were rimmed red with shed tears. “I wish I could help you.”

“You are,” she insisted, voice low. “Stay alive.”

When Felix entered she was horrified by the sight that greeted her.

Rosy cheeked and in healthful color, he knelt in the center of a deep impression shaped like a four-pointed star. His dark hair clung to his face, obscuring his gaze. She struggled to breathe normally as she circled the pit, noting his bound wrists and hunched posture.

“Akrisae,” she called softly. Her boots struck metal as she stepped down into the depression, mysterious stains coming into view as she came level with him. His knees were scraped horribly, scabrous and raw beneath flayed robes. Cotton that had once fallen gracefully over his shoulders now lay shredded to the waist. The grate below him opened into a watery hole, and it appeared he had been there for a while, clothed in the tattered remains of his former life. His hands tightened in their restraints as she neared.

_What has he been doing to you?_

“Please, don't come any closer,” he whispered, lips hardly moving to form the words, “he’ll be back.”   

Felix understood, but she wanted to free him anyway. Taking the dagger from her hip she knelt beside him, carefully working at the bonds. He tried to struggle away but she worked quickly, and he fell forward as the dirty roping unfurled.

“You shouldn’t have,” Akrisae said sadly, and when he looked at her his eyes were the same spectral green as the brothers. “It’s almost time.”

Meg’s voice rose into a shout in the corridor and she jerked to her feet as the gate slammed down.

“Felix never does as she’s told.” Sliske's unrelenting cackle forced the undead priest into a pitiful slouch, hands balled on his thighs as he twisted his head down in a frantic attempt to become unnoticeable.

“I dare say you under dressed.” He smirked down at them, leaning casually against his stolen weapon. “Getting comfortable?” A high, crimson collar framed his perverse stare, broadening his chest as it plunged into the deep neckline of his robes. 

_Flamboyant bastard._

Haggard gasps escaped Akrisae as he shuddered, and she moved between them protectively. The situation behind the room and whatever 'puzzle' the conniving mahjarrat wanted her to solve wasn't making itself clear yet, but she was tired of having to hurt people.

Sliske tapped the Staff against the ground. “That’s close enough. Paying any consideration to your actions? Because if so, how poetic.” Selecting a stone to seat himself upon and dangling his legs over the edge, his tone changed to that of a command. “Now, Akrisae.”

One moment Felix was snarling an insult and the next she was clawing for purchase on the hand surrounding her neck, held in the wight’s iron grip. Her arms were yanked tightly backward and she gasped, thrashing blindly, the mesh teeth keeping them above the water vibrating in deep clangs.

“Shit,” she wheezed, flailing her legs as Akrisae restrained her. Throat aching, she drew in stale air. The feeling of his cold chest against her back was as depressing as it was revolting. Her captor pulled her backwards, forcing her to look up. Sliske stared, fixated on a point somewhere below her chin.

“Paint a picture!” Felix shouted, bile rising with it on her tongue.

“Would but I had the time,” he muttered huskily, and lifted the Staff. Twin points dug hard against her ribcage as he forced it into the leather covering her chest, the orb fixed in its golden cradle shining with authority. She pulled her shoulders forward in an effort to lessen the pressure but there was nothing she could do. The hold left her practically dangling, poised to be impaled.

_“There is something within you that needs culling.”_

_“He has a good point. I am a terrible person.”_

_Should’ve listened,_ Felix mused, and squeezed her eyes shut.

A thunderous crack rent the air as her spectator quickly drew a large amount of energy into the swirling orb. “ _Don’t_ be so ridiculous, my dear. Look at me.”

She did. In the dim, his hood obscured the crest of each eyebrow, but two yellow irises appraised her gritted teeth before traveling downwards. Felix swore at the pain building in her shoulder blades. Sliske seemed almost enchanted by it, intently watching every judder of her hips and legs as she twisted for room to escape.

His position never faltered as he spoke. “Because you're ever so dedicated to making sure we’re never alone for long, I thought it best to secure some privacy.” His gaze flicked to the undead priest, and he grinned. “Well, nearly. The importance of this conversation begs it.”

Felix swallowed, the skin of her throat pulling from its severe angle.

“It’s a simple request,” Sliske continued, touching his collarbone with a large glove modestly. “You see, I'd convinced myself that I was winning. You were going to leave them all for me. And when you did, we would both be the better for it.”

Her spirit flared in outrage somewhere below the sting in her heart. More than anything Felix wanted control, the empowering force that struck down godly avatars and steamrolled philandering aliens.

It wouldn’t come.

“But now it seems you aren’t as fascinated with me.” He paused, as if to reconsider his words. “Or perhaps I was wrong all along. In either case, I’ve created an excellent resolution to our mutual predicament.”

“Does it involve talking me to death?” Felix spat.

Sliske smiled thinly. “No. My offer goes like this. If you promise to hand over your soul, I’ll let all your little friends go and leave you alone, assuming I believe you. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll have to tear it from you, and by that point you won’t be in a state fit enough to tell whether or not the body parts littering my compound are familiar to you.”

“What problem do you imagine I have that's best worked out by either selling my soul to you or painfully dying?”

She sounded foreign even to herself, voice discordant and trembling with anger. Sliske tutted and withdrew the sizzling head of the artifact long enough to creep down into the depression, his towering figure coming just within striking distance.

The sound of dull banging halted his steps. He glared at the ceiling.

“Tell me,” Sliske dismayed, and his gaze snapped back to hers. “How else will we ever be rid of each other?” 

The banging increased and then dropped off abruptly. Jangling like a ring of keys filled the ensuing pause. Someone was fiddling with the locking mechanism outside of the bars, and using pretty unwholesome language in their frustration.

Sliske leveled an apologetic look her way and turned.

“This is a private conversation!” Sliske shouted angrily. Staff already raised and shuddering with potential, he fired a beam of energy at the gate. It flared in an orange burst of molten debris and chalky dust, an unfamiliar shriek dying away as somebody tumbled into the chamber. "Oh, you haven't. You have. I'm giving you to the count of one, my nasty little envoy!"

Felix tensed in preparation for what she would have to do.

They coughed and lifted themselves up slowly, midnight blue hair undulating as though underwater. “Master, please,” Relomia cried, “I’m sorry, but the hostages—”

Hardening her core to the point of breathlessness, Felix rocked back as forcefully as Akrisae's supernaturally strong grip would allow, lifting her knees and hammering both boots into Sliske’s exposed back. He stumbled in his surprise, and Akrisae’s footing failed on the slippery grate, such that they went tumbling to the ground.

Sparing nary a thought for her fallen weapon, Felix rolled and grabbed the first ledge leading out of the pit.

“Stop!” Sliske was caught in the dilemma of whether to instruct Relomia or fire on Felix, pushing himself from the ground with a snarl, and she took advantage of the error. Akrisae had yet to rise, his unseeing stare fixed on the moist ceiling. “ _I said stop!_ ”

Tumbling through the destroyed gateway into the corridor, Felix whipped around in search of Meg, Mary, and Linza but they were nowhere to be found. The piercing whine of the Staff of Armadyl charging again jumpstarted her heart. She flung herself against the wall as it shot past her. “ _Felix!_ ”

Panicked bowing and scraping that she identified as Relomia trailed closer only to cut off abruptly. Picking a direction, she sprinted back the way they had been corralled, the winding of the paved tunnel taking her back toward the maze.

Before Felix could get there, a hand shot out of the darkness and hauled her bodily into it, smothering her mouth. Furious screams died in her throat as she took in the wild eyes of her companions.

“Thank the Gods,” Meg whispered urgently, “Quickly! We found a way that could lead out of here!”

Flooded with relief, Felix clasped a hand to the younger woman's cheek and smiled at her. Apparently, after making a run for it, they had spotted a crevice nestled discreetly in a bend of the musty tunnel, hardly large enough for a child to pass through. Sheer determination compelling them forward, Felix managed to widen it enough for Linza by breaking away the edge of a large stone. One by one they tumbled through.

While they were properly heaped on the floor, the Major had already collected herself and was exploring the room they had broken into. “You should see this,” Mary called softly, gesturing to a strange, mobile series of connected rings, jagged in shape. Centered between them was a glowing light. It all floated in the middle of a purple, trigonal spell grid, and was further surrounded by a series of planetary bodies suspended from the low ceiling.

“We probably weren’t meant to,” Felix replied, forgetting her rage for a moment. Stone bowls and flasks filled with myriad liquids and a black sludge peppered a few workbenches around the occult scene, and some of the same sick smelling brews titrated slowly from fine-stemmed pipes into open measuring jars.

Meg looked a little taken with it. “It’s amazing,” she breathed, “like a laboratory!”

"It's a dead end." Linza could hardly force the words out, breathing abnormal as her paranoid stare darted from the crack to the rooms contents. It stretched for quite a long ways but there were no doors, no indication of an exit.

“You're right, it doesn't look like there's a way out of here,” Felix said. “We’re still trapped, unless this place is exempt from the rest of the dungeon’s teleportation block.”

Mary performed the rune test again. It wasn't.

They searched the room, flipping through books filled with obscure historical recollections and rattling locked cabinets in search of anything that could help them escape. Meg found an extremely unsettling cage in the back of a storage closet, and Felix declined to look at it, stomach twisting as she thought about who and what it was for.

_My soulless body, maybe._

Recent events were catching back up to her. 

Consumed with a crushing sense of betrayal, Felix took a hard look at the shelf full of multicolored bottles she had been fruitlessly carding through and upended it. The sound was deafening in the quiet they had been maintaining. Linza shook like a leaf. “Please, he’s probably hot on our tail!”

“It’s only a matter of time before he finds us,” Felix rejoined. _Stop feeling hurt. Stop being surprised._ Major Rancour placed a solemn hand on her shoulder and she turned, still spitting mad. “ _What_?”

“Here,” she said seriously. Spiral bound in stiff slabs of thick archival print, Mary placed the book in her hands. "There's stuff about you in there." She watched Felix as she cracked it open, glancing through a series of pages making up the table of contents before stopping cold on a passage.

_What the fuck._

Her eyes flicked quickly over the page as she read it again. Felix inhaled shakily and whipped through the next dozen pages, scanning the neat handwriting and forgoing the unflattering drawings for an explanation, a clue, anything to quell the gorge rising in her throat. Landing on a sentence that began after a series of ripped, illegible sheets, she read aloud. “We’re not as similar as I had hoped, are we?”

Despite the numb fear infecting her, the thought occurred to Felix that something much more serious was at hand than soul magic.

_You fucking maniac._

“Oh, you’re nothing like that villain,” Meg promised fiercely, leaning over her shoulder. “Is that you? What is that supposed to be, in erm…” She gestured strangely at her own abdomen, “that… region?”

Felix snapped the book shut. Linza’s hands were buried in her hair and she appeared to be losing it a little, sweating clean through the material of her shirt with yet more beading on her brow. “We have to find a way out of here, World Guardian. There’s no time left.”

“Agreed,” the Major said shortly, offering her a gentle pat on the back. “This is not the time or place to fight over the implications of what we've discovered.”

They turned to the rotating orb of light Mary had first discovered.

“Okay,” Felix relented, tucking the book into the gap in her leather tunic. “Stay back. I’m going to touch it.”

Meg braced herself against a table while the other two women looked on in concern.

As her fingers contacted with the purple core, a few things happened. Firstly her vision whited out and was rapidly replaced with a vision of a being she had never seen anything like before. She became extremely aware of a force entering her, and it was listening to her thoughts.

“I’m okay,” Felix said, hoping her friends could hear. All she could see was the fathomless wheel of stone churning in the endless space before her, far away but almost close enough to touch, as though she were looking at it through a window. Rotating imperceptibly it raised the pointed ends of each enormous, rocky spoke. The spidery limbs were alive. She tried to move, fearing the golden slits that examined her from its stoic center.

Suddenly the perspective was reversed, and she was looking down on a tiny Stone of Jas, and Sliske. She felt her mouth, an object without lips or throat, speaking in a foreign voice.

**_Beauty is meaningless._ **

Sliske sighed and crossed his arms, regarding her sadly. _“Surely you can’t think that. Beauty makes my world bearable. It evokes real emotion. It can bring empires to ruin, or inspire evil men to heroic deeds.”_

**_That’s irrelevant._ **

Possessing her in this way the vision continued. 

_**Will it bring them?** _

And her comprehension grew.

_“Of course.”_

The World Guardian was ripped back into her own body. Her senses returned slowly, in phases. Fingers closing around her neck, breath tickling her chin, and the toes of her boots scraping the ground.

Meg's sweet voice, begging incoherently for it to stop.

A hooded face swam into sight.

“You,” Sliske drawled, voice tight, “are really trying my patience.”

Felix grunted as she was thrown across the room, slamming into an unforgiving section of wall with enough force to kill a regular person. She fell to the floor, limbs sprawled.

Linza was speaking quickly, shouting, and the Major was holding her back. She was unable to tell if they were even close enough to be involved from the fish eyed view her probable head injury was providing her.

Sliske raised five or six right arms and leveled the Staff at her. _But I nearly forgot._ The words his duplicates spoke had the tone of rude sarcasm.  _Here's your prize!_

It couldn’t have taken more than an instant, but it felt like an eternity.

The Staff discharged a bolt of florescent green lightning. They were screaming now, her name, Sliske.

 _Strange._ The world stretched into that second of scorching pain as it consumed her entire form, not simply striking but penetrating her, leeching from her, and then she raised her hand.

Inky darkness issued from the center of her palm, clashing against the attack before deflecting it entirely. The beam was forced to ricochet off into another corner of Sliske’s laboratory and terminated in broiled clay, passing through several layers of bookshelf, wood, and disfigured stone.

_How dare you._

Heavy books thumped haltingly to the ground as their supports melted apart.

**_How dare you!_ **

Felix felt ten feet tall and six feet under. Shadows were licking at the edge of her mind and her body, scalded and tingling, must have been dunked in the sun from how unbearably hot she was.

Footsteps. Meg and the Major. They were lifting her up, surrounding her.

“I have no idea how you did that,” Sliske bit out lowly. A great distance separated her from the sound and she clawed through her fading consciousness to, at minimum, hear his wrathful speech as it rose into a coarse yell. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m going to kill you, I’m going to kill your friends, and then I'm going to reanimate all of you and kill you again, if that’s even a viable option to me at this point!”

“Linza,” Felix called weakly. She looked up and the smith was just standing there rooted to the spot. _Run._

Reaching deeply to find that unspoken unity, a companion pillowing her spirit in the darkness, she gripped the women surrounding her tightly and focused on picturing the overworld.

_Please._

The only warning she had that her ‘spell’ was functioning was the furious widening of Sliske’s eyes, followed by a rumbling that originated somewhere deep below them.

_Run._

They disappeared from the room with a pop and slammed into the fecund soil of The Barrows.

Meg groaned and struggled to her knees tearfully, looking on their surroundings with regret. “No… we left her! I can’t believe we did that!”

The Major was still reeling, laid out on her back against the grassy knoll of the burial mound they'd came into material existence atop of.  _Gods, why does it always feel like that._ She squinted against the haze descending over her and sized up the way Mary was groaning.  _She's hurt, when did that happen?_

“Your kid,” Felix realized, clinging to the world feverishly as it spun her in every direction. _I am definitely concussed._ “She’s so worried about you.” Mary looked at her in pained confusion, mouth open to correct her, but she was interrupted.

The words echoed as they were spoken. “World Guardian.”

He stood not far from where they were laying. _Dharok._ Visions of his transparent figure doubled. “I’m sorry. We’ve done what we can, but you must leave. We’ll take care of Linza.”

Either the ground was still experiencing tremors or she was. Mind swimming and burning with heat exhaustion, Felix grabbed Meg by the collar clumsily, missing a few times and hitting her in the shoulder instead. Truthfully, she was probably terrifying her, but what she had to say was too important.

“I’m about to beef it,” Felix insisted seriously. “So you have to get us out of here.”

Meg’s alarmed expression sent her into the dark.


End file.
